


many waters

by hauntedjaeger (saellys)



Series: TOG/A Knight's Tale [2]
Category: A Knight's Tale (2001), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Anal Sex, Developing Relationship, Hand Jobs, Idiots in Love, M/M, Missing Scenes, Mutual Pining, Non-Immortality AU, POV Alternating, Quoting the Bible But Make It Sexy, The Rituals Are Intricate, antagonists to lovers, intentional anachronisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 14:22:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30040044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saellys/pseuds/hauntedjaeger
Summary: He was not good at lying to himself. He tried not to, as a practice--there was enough torment in this life. He knew fifteen years ago precisely why he was unsuited to the priesthood; he admitted now, with nothing to distract him from what he knew full well, why the herald was as a bur beneath a saddle.“I am the king of fools,” he pronounced. “The crown ass.”The palfrey snorted out a cloud of breath.“Yes,” said Nico, “that’s what I thought you’d say.”
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: TOG/A Knight's Tale [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2209893
Comments: 7
Kudos: 80





	many waters

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [archaic kinds of fun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27531721) by [hauntedjaeger (saellys)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saellys/pseuds/hauntedjaeger). 



> Hello! This fic fills in some gaps from "archaic kinds of fun," a crossover between The Old Guard and A Knight's Tale. You'll have to read that one to know what's going on here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27531721 
> 
> All my love and gratitude goes to MayQueen517 for invaluable beta work!

After receiving ten blows of the sword and blocking most of them, Nile--Sir Nell--had a moment in her corner of the sword ring to rest. Nico craned across the fence to see into her visor. “How’s the armor?” he asked. 

“Miraculous,” Nile told him. “I hardly feel a thing.” 

“Look at his.” Nile peered across the ring at her opponent, and Nico went on, “He took a bad hit in the lists. His pauldron’s loose--if you strike overhand, he will not be able to block.” 

Nile nodded firmly, and Nico thumped his fist against her helmet. “Bring him low, Nile.” 

He knew his mistake at once and Nile glanced warningly at him, but then it was time for her to give the blows, so she moved away from the fence. Their only saving grace was that the sword ring was far more raucous than the lists, and no one had heard him. 

Almost no one. Along came the opportunistic herald. God love Nile for her willingness to feed strays, but Nico hoped they weren’t stuck with this man for long. He was far too… much. 

“Squire Nicolò,” said Yusuf, in a companionable tone that was only loud enough for the two of them to hear, “if you are unable to commit to this ruse, you ought to tell us now.” 

Nico felt his face flame up. During their month of preparation, he had practiced calling Nile by Andy’s name, not by this persona the herald had just concocted the night before. The implication that _he_ couldn’t see this through, or that after fifteen years with Sir Angharad, Nico’s place, his belonging, was somehow in doubt, voiced by a man who just yesterday had been traipsing naked through the countryside, though from his bearing one would have believed he wore the finest velvet-- 

He leaned forward with his elbows on the fence, farther from the distracting way the herald’s breath smelled like cress. “I must beg your pardon. I have only ever made an honest living, and I am unaccustomed to buying my supper with lies.” 

Steel rang across the ring. Nile’s overhand swings were rigorous, Nico knew from experience. 

The herald looked askance at him and said, “What exactly is the punishment for commoners who fraud themselves into the lists?” 

“The stocks,” Nico said sullenly, glad of the noise. 

“The brand,” said Andy from his other side, “if the lord who finds you out is spiteful enough.” 

And after that, Nico imagined, lasting ignominy that involved begging in the streets and being kicked like a cur when one’s welcome was outstayed. 

The herald’s compelling eyes fixed on Nile now, and Nico thought he saw some new respect in them. Or perhaps he only marveled at the sheer bravado of her, in which case he was in good company. “And what of those who abet them?” he asked. 

A fair question, as defrauding a tourney was certainly not something that could be done alone. But Nico had never seen anyone punished alongside a pretender knight. No heralds, no squires, no landed knights who enabled the scheme. He shook his head. 

If this gave the herald any relief, he didn’t show it, but gathered himself instead for one last volley. “Then, for her sake, I bid you master your tongue.” He walked away through the crowd. 

Nico fumed. He shoved his sweaty hair out of his face. And then he said under his breath, “Sir Nell, Sir Nell, Sir Nell,” like he would say the rosary. 

In the sword ring, Nile--Sir Nell, Sir Nell, Sir Nell--turned toward the marshal. “Is that five?” she asked. 

“Aye,” said the marshal. 

“I yield my final five blows,” Nile--Sir Nell, Sir Nell, Sir Nell--said. She had already won the match five blows to four, and there was no need to tenderize the steak overmuch. 

But the crowd had come to see swords swing, at least until the sun went down and they could go to the nearest cockfight instead. Applause was scarce for a match cut short. 

“Behold my lady Sir Nell,” cried the herald, jumping the fence and raising Nile’s--Sir Nell’s, Sir Nell’s, Sir Nell’s--right hand in his. “Her sword is swift, yet her mercy is swifter! Like a wind from Gelderland, she sweeps by! We _walk_ in the _garden_ of her _turbulence_!” 

It was as quiet as Nico had ever heard the sword ring. At last Andy growled, “Yeah!” and the crowd echoed her with cheers. 

“Who’s next?” Nile panted as they cleared the ring. 

Nico gave her the waterskin. “No one. It’s luncheon, and then you joust again.” 

“Good--I’m starved.” She caught herself before he could remind her they had no coin, and hid her disappointment behind the same disinterested mask Nico had cultivated over the same number of years in this business. He probably wore it too now; it rose to his face automatically in seasons of hunger. “On second thought,” Nile said, “I think I should try to sleep.” 

After spending all night before the forge, an afternoon nap did sound good. Nico made to follow her and Andy toward their pavilion. 

But the herald, who seemed incapable of feigning disinterest in anything, put out a hand. “Come with me, squire Nicolò. I shall need your strong back.” 

Nico stood and watched for the better part of the midday break as the herald approached every couple he saw in the marketplace. “My lord!” he said, repeatedly. “A poem for your lady?” 

At last he found a buyer, and then came Nico’s part. The herald stood behind him, using Nico’s back to prop his parchment as he scribbled. 

Furniture. Nico was furniture. He tried to turn his thoughts inward and simply endure this, maybe offer a few paternosters for the luck they’d had thus far, but the scratch of quill on parchment kept breaking his concentration, and the herald’s fingertips were forever dancing about between Nico’s shoulder blades. 

After a year or two the herald finished, and Nico stepped back while he read it aloud and presented it to the lady. She simpered and folded the parchment away near her heart, and her man slipped some coin to the herald. 

Yusuf bowed low to them, and when they walked away he rose up unsmiling. “I expected them to appreciate art here in Rouen,” he muttered. Then he seemed to remember Nico was there, and was not just a plank of wood. “What did you think of it?” 

“It didn’t rhyme.” And Nico was certain that the bit about berries ripening all summer and only turning sweet because they coveted the red of the lady’s lips, that _that_ was obscene. He was too hungry to argue about it, though, lest he suffer the herald’s inevitable condescension. 

“It doesn’t have to rh--ah, well.” The herald seized Nico’s hand and put two pence in it. “There’s your honest living. What would you have for luncheon, squire Nicolò?” 

But two pence could buy them one skewer of cat’s meat, or one tansy cake with peppermint cream, or one sausage dumpling. Barely enough to fill a single belly, much less four. He was tempted to say that the herald would have earned more coin if he’d rhymed. Instead, Nico pressed the coins between his palms and said, “We should feed the one who needs their strength most.” 

It was impossible for eyes such as the herald’s to hide their disappointment, but he overcame it quickly and nodded with resolve. 

“I thought you meant Sir Nell,” he said moments later, as Nico fed oats to the horse. 

Nico chafed Enfys beneath his forelock. “Let her sleep. We have gone longer and worked harder on empty stomachs.” 

The herald stared at him with eyes as dark as ink, and Nico felt accused. Or as if the herald somehow saw _them_ as candidates for charity, and not as Samaritans who had shown him great mercy on the road. 

“I’m going to sell more poems,” he declared. 

“There’s no time,” Nico said. They were due at the tiltyard in twenty minutes, and he should wake Nile--Sir Nell, Sir Nell, Sir Nell--in five. “Save it for the lists, where it has some effect. And anyway, it’s only the start of the season; things will get better.” 

“As you say,” the herald said sourly. 

Nico itched between the shoulder blades, where the herald’s fingertips had been. He absolutely would not scratch. 

* * *

While Sir Nell was at banquet, they had their own feast in the pavilion, cross-legged on their bedrolls. Cat’s meat, ale, crusty bread, and sausage dumplings which Yusuf declined. The squire silently took the extra dumplings and gave Yusuf two of his skewers. 

The squire and Sir Angharad ate silently and swiftly, just as the squire and Sir Nell had done with the meal Yusuf brought on their first night in Rouen. Yusuf saw supper as an opportunity for conversation, but he supposed this life did not permit that leisure. 

When they’d all eaten their fill, there was a collective sigh. It had been a very long and eventful two days. Yusuf questioned his capacity to live as they did, putting their heads down and pressing on through so much want and discomfort. More than once had he been tempted to go find another rusty nail to sell, just to put them up at an inn for the night. 

But the squire had taken that poorly enough the first time to convince Yusuf that he shouldn’t repeat it--that despite leaving the clergy and his many oaths about Jesu, it still meant something to Nicolò di Genova. Though ʿĪsā ibn Maryam had not died on a cross, Yusuf would exercise better manners going forward and give up purveying religious relics. 

As if he sensed Yusuf’s new pliancy of spirit, the squire said, “This business about the protector of Italian virginity needs to end.” 

Yusuf feigned offense. “First you criticize me for not rhyming, then you say my rhymes are vulgar, and now you want me to cut the line that wins the people’s love.” 

“Ni--Sir Nell won the people’s love, despite your effort to embarrass her.” 

Well, Yusuf warmed them up. 

That was the beautiful serendipities about language, any language--in the midst of poesy, an unexpected bluntness could shock the hearer into that love. Sometimes the most effective word was a curse, something to remind people that they’re all crude human beings capable of vast disappointment with circumstances and with themselves. Yusuf had made many friends in the past with a well-timed _shit_ , but there were children in the stands. He could be coy with _honor_ or _virtue_ , but the crowds had to _feel_ what was at stake. 

To the squire, he said, “The line isn’t about you, you know.” 

“I know it isn’t about me, because I’m not a virgin,” the squire muttered. 

“What was that?” 

“I said I’m _not_ \--“ The squire caught himself just as Yusuf could no longer contain his grin. 

Sir Angharad raised her good arm to plug her ear, and went to sit outside the pavilion. 

“Do go on,” Yusuf said. 

The squire stared at him flatly. Yusuf felt quite judged. “You think you are the only one who has been places and seen things.” 

“I know I’m not,” Yusuf protested. How could he help that trade and travel were his lot from infancy? “It’s only, I must have something to replace that line, for the sake of rhythm, you see. ‘The Sword Champion of Rouen’ won’t have the same effect. Give me a deed to win hearts.” 

“Am I now to do your job on top of my own?” 

Intractable. Yusuf blew out a sigh and conjured a bargain. “When she wins the tournament in Lagny-sur-Marne, Insha’Allah, I will retire it.” 

If one knew the day when a particular suffering would cease, one could press on contentedly. The squire nodded his acceptance and took his pale eyes off Yusuf. 

Daylight had faded, and by the light of their candle Yusuf leaned back on his bedroll. He said, “Where then have you been, squire Nicolò?” 

“All across the continent. South as far as Sicilia. East, to Buda. North, to Denmark. London, and some of Wales. And you?”

“Much the same, though I’ve been farther south. And to Fez, westward. How far west have you gone?”

The apple of his throat moved before the squire answered. “Poitiers.” 

A bit of tinder flared up outside as Sir Angharad lit a pipe. The smell reached Yusuf presently. He hoped it brought her relief from the pain. 

He did the sums in his head: the squire would have been scarcely out of boyhood when his liege knight came to be called _the Scythe_. Sir Angharad’s epithet was the most potent sort of metaphor—the kind that became preferable to knowing the reality. 

“You went on campaign at sixteen?” he said. 

Nicolò flicked his gaze over him, but Yusuf was not mocking him now. The squire looked away again. “I am not my father’s first son.” 

Then he couldn’t inherit the family business, and his prospects were limited. 

Well, Yusuf was _his_ father’s first son, but Ibrahim was not ready to retire yet. Even so, on this extended holiday, Yusuf was expected to make trade contacts if he should find anything worthwhile. 

The English had left this part of France downtrodden, with little to offer but tourneys. There was a silversmith in Rouen whose work came close to rivaling what Yusuf had brought from home (and lost the night he was robbed). If he had just a bit more coin, he would have bought samples to carry back, as well as a few pieces for himself. 

The only other thing with any artistry he had seen was the light, tough plate armor Nicolò had crafted for Sir Nell. Even Yusuf could recognize that its strength and lightness was far superior to all the other knights’ gear, which was often the same rugged steel they had worn to war. 

Not for the first time, Yusuf was grateful to have never witnessed battle. Only these codified games, which he was inclined to consider toothless--before the jousts of yesterday afternoon, with their very real dangers, disabused him of that notion. There were stakes here even beyond the risk to the body. 

If they were found out, if Sir Nell was exposed, he had no doubt that Sir Angharad would make her a place in her household. But after the stocks, would she accept it? Yusuf saw in her a proud streak broad enough to bridge the Mediterranean. It turned his stomach to think of that being quenched by public humiliation. She would be as the soldiers who returned from war with eyes ever staring, ever unseeing. If she pushed away the hands that reached to help her then--Sir Angharad’s, Nicolò’s, and, yes, Yusuf’s...

It didn’t bear imagining. Not on a night of celebration. Their bellies were full and their purses well padded, Nile had not been found out, and all they could do at Lagny-sur-Marne and afterward was their best to keep it that way. 

That he would continue on with them had not been questioned, not even by the squire. Perhaps Yusuf had made himself indispensable. 

He shifted on his bedroll, but it did nothing to make it more comfortable. They _could_ have rented a room tonight, or at least a stable. “If only we didn’t serve a knight from Cheapskate,” Yusuf whispered. 

“Cheapside,” the squire corrected, not whispering. 

“Careful,” Yusuf told him. 

The squire’s eyes flashed. “ _You_ be careful.” 

Yusuf turned on his side, facing the pavilion’s opening. “I trust, squire Nicolò, that you will wake me if there’s trouble.” 

Squire Nicolò made no answer but to pinch out the candle and lie down himself, with his back to Yusuf. 

There was just enough light through the canvas for Yusuf to see the silhouette of the squire’s shoulder, the breadth of it. It had been a day and a half since the dismal attempt to sell poems, and still he felt Nicolò’s back beneath his fingertips. How firm it had been. How slight the movement when the squire breathed. How carefully Yusuf had held the inkpot between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand so as not to spill down Nicolò’s back. The poem had been overwrought in the end; his concentration was too divided. 

The squire was always so still, aside from when Yusuf was able to goad him. If Yusuf touched him there without parchment or cloth between them, would he see lean muscle dance beneath the squire’s skin? If Yusuf breathed against the back of his neck, would he shiver? If Yusuf pressed his face between Nicolò’s shoulder blades--

 _Oh_. 

Shit. 

* * *

He was a fool. He was the king of fools. 

Nico had been on the road nearly two weeks, from Venice to the keep in Lyon where Lady Quỳnh was staying. He did a fine job of focusing only on the road and on trying to come up with a name for the palfrey. It was a well tempered creature and a good traveling companion. 

He had a shirt that wanted mending, and in the evenings he turned his attention to that, and not to the letter. Not to the memory of Yusuf holding the vellum against his back. Certainly not. 

In Lyon he had presented the letter to the lady, and waited as she read it aloud. Lady Quỳnh had a lilt to her voice that made music of Yusuf’s words. All of their words. Nico heard it, when she read it, almost as a chant: 

_The moon has changed. I have seen_ _  
_ _All its faces, but not your face._ _  
_ _And so my path is in darkness._ _  
_ _I have seen sunsets and sunrises_ _  
_ _With no warmth in them. It feels like_ _  
_ _Many waters lie between us._ _  
_ _I can’t navigate them. The stars_ _  
_ _Reel in the sky, but there is one_ _  
_ _Constant enough to guide me._ _  
_ _I am held at my limit as a bowstring drawn,_ _  
_ _And you are the arrow._ _  
_ _I wait to be released._ _  
_ _I wait for you,_ _  
_ _With all the love I possess._

There was a melody Nico half-remembered, but the words were clear: _Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it._

“She speaks as though I had died,” said Lady Quỳnh. “Is she well?” 

_For love is as strong as death_. 

How to tell her Andy sighed day and night like she bore a mortal wound? He could not say something that would bring Lady Quỳnh to think less of her. “She is,” Nico said. And because the lady’s maid Celeste was there as well, with a pleasant and expectant look in her eyes, he added, “As is Nile.” 

He was a fool. His face heated at once and when he squeezed his eyes shut, it was the herald’s disappointed expression he saw swimming before him. 

But if anyplace could be safe to speak Nile’s true name, it was here in this bower of many curtains and fragrant rushes. The ladies said nothing about it. After a moment Nico pushed past the embarrassment and asked if Lady Quỳnh had any message to send in return. She did, with Nicolò’s permission. 

He had no compunctions about kissing strangers. Had done, when they had money for inns during the season, and at one memorable carnevale. Lady Quỳnh was as a stranger; her lips were full and warm and Nico only flushed a little now, out of embarrassment that he hadn’t shaved before delivering the letter. 

And still he saw the herald’s dismayed face. 

Lady Quỳnh and Celeste offered him lodgings for the night, which he accepted with gratitude. In the morning they sent him off on the palfrey with a bag full of apples fresh from the orchard. 

Halfway to Prague it poured down rain, flooding the road and delaying him for a full day. Nico’s shirt was mended and his horse-naming game had lost its savor. He sat against the tree where he tied oilcloth to shelter himself and the palfrey on a bit of high ground. 

He was not good at lying to himself. He tried not to, as a practice--there was enough torment in this life. He knew fifteen years ago precisely why he was unsuited to the priesthood; he admitted now, with nothing to distract him from what he knew full well, why the herald was as a bur beneath a saddle. 

“I am the king of fools,” he pronounced. “The crown ass.” 

The palfrey snorted out a cloud of breath. 

“Yes,” said Nico, “that’s what I thought you’d say.” 

There wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. Certainly not here in the wilderness, and not when he returned to the others, either. They both had a job to do and could not afford distraction. When the season was over they would go back to their homes on opposite sides of the sea. The whim of destiny that had made their paths cross once would not do so twice. 

Though he entertained the idea, he couldn’t lie to himself about this much: he would find no satisfaction in taking the herald to bed and then parting ways. What he wanted from Yusuf was much more. Something eternal. 

And that was assuming Yusuf even wanted him back. How bitterly he now regretted his sharpness early on, his distrust and threats, his criticism. If Yusuf ever again opened his words, his art, _himself_ to Nico’s opinion, he would treat that as the precious thing it was. But that, too, would not happen another time. He had squandered it. 

Of course. Of course Nico would moon and languish over a man who was at best indifferent to him. Of course he would awaken love before its proper time. 

Again he felt the memory of fingertips at his back. Again he heard the words of the letter in Lady Quỳnh’s tunesome voice. Again he heard her ask his consent to carry a token back to Andy. 

And only now did it occur to him what that would mean. 

Jesu, hell and damn, and every other curse Nico knew, it wasn’t enough to _receive_ the lady’s token, he would have to _deliver_ it. 

Andy was no stranger. He had seen battle with her, he had helped bathe her when she was wounded, he had stayed at her estate. He had not thought this through at all, so consumed was he in thinking of Yusuf. Yusuf, who would be right there watching. 

He was backed into a terrible corner. Hesitate too long and he would seem a coward; convey the message too quickly and… well, he might be mistaken for a man interested in women. Had he made it clear enough that he was not? Should he have specified that he was not a virgin because he had lain with men? Several men? And enjoyed it? 

How simple life had been before they found that man on the road. Nico had questioned nothing back then, doubted nothing, known precisely where he stood, and feared no missteps. Now the stars reeled in the sky and every shot he made flew wide. 

When the reeling exhausted him, he laid himself down, though it was still shy of evening. He always slept lightly enough, and this rain would drive even highwaymen to shelter. The ground was uneven--Nico shifted on his bedroll, but had no relief. 

If Yusuf were here, it wouldn’t be an issue. With Yusuf at his back, Nico could sleep on nails, or coals. 

“His left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me,” he quoted. 

Another snort from the horse. “You’re very wise,” said Nico. 

At least one of them was. 

* * *

Oh, he had misread Nicolò di Genova in so many ways. In the first place, he _was_ the master of his tongue. 

In the second, he was capable of appreciating poetry. 

Yusuf didn’t skimp on the poem. He used the enclosed rhyme scheme Petrarca popularized, and even with a borrowed form in a borrowed language he took pains that the meter should be consistent. In theme, Yusuf tried to be artful without (as was his wont) hurtling across the line of pretentiousness. 

The first stanza was from the view of an epicure who tasted every food but dates, while the second was from a linguist who spoke all but the tongues of Romance. Both found the gaps in their experiences intolerable and compelled themselves across the world to fill them. 

He agonized over it from Venice to Prague, until the very moment Nico rejoined them and became all he could see. Yusuf had kept his eyes closed--like some nervous young scholar! _When_ did this man’s opinion become coin to him?--while reciting the stanzas once they were alone together, but forced them open for the end of the sonnet to make sure his meaning landed. He saw Nicolò’s eyes go wide and bewildered, as if he could not quite trust his interpretation, when Yusuf spoke the last line: _As I have not touched you, I’ve touched no man_. 

Because, of course, Yusuf had touched Nicolò. Yusuf had touched his share of men. And none of it was worth anything if he could not press his face between Nicolò’s shoulder blades as he would do to a bolt of soft cloth, something so beautifully crafted that it stirred awe in him rivaled only by Allah’s artistry. If he could not know Nicolò like that, the rest of his experience counted for nothing. He might as well have never lain with anyone. 

If the poem didn’t make that clear, he might as well go home. 

But to his infinite relief and wonder, Nico understood. His clear eyes saw beyond Yusuf’s entendre. 

Which brought them, after a hasty and fumbling (delicious, incandescent) kiss that Nile interrupted by calling them to load out, here. A stable in Paris, chilled from the autumn evening, but so hot amid the furs and straw that Yusuf feared, in the one still-thinking corner of his mind, they might start a fire. 

The third matter in which he had misread Nicolò di Genova was this: he was absolutely no virgin. 

Nico was proving it now, tending to Yusuf with such deliberate care, they might have been doing this together for centuries. He handled Yusuf with the steady skillfulness of… metaphors failed him. A master craftsman’s hand, shaping pleasure. Was it that he already knew all the places where a firm grasp or a light touch would make Yusuf shiver? Or was it that anticipation, the weeks of absence, turned all of his flesh to a bowstring thrumming just for Nico? 

He suspected the latter, but it hardly mattered. Either way he was beyond coherent expression. All that passed his lips was breath, and now and then a high whine that he scarcely believed came from him. Language didn’t exist anymore. Nothing existed beyond the span of their arms, the furs, the straw, and Nico’s face above him. 

Yusuf reached up to touch that face. Nico had shaved a few hours ago, and that was only the first and smallest of the blessings being heaped upon Yusuf this evening. Too many to bear. He had quite buckled beneath them all. 

Nico’s eyes were already sharp with concentration, but when Yusuf’s palm found his cheek, they grew somehow more piercing. He held Yusuf’s gaze as he turned his head to kiss Yusuf’s wrist, where his pulse must have been thunderous--must surely have matched the rhythm of Nico’s hips beat for beat. Yusuf felt as if the first green shoots of spring were unfurling in his chest. 

And then Nico did _something_ with his hand where it was wrapped around Yusuf, something utterly indescribable, and Yusuf’s fingers tangled in Nico’s hair as all his thoughts were obliterated like dust shaken from a rug. 

His knees protested being so long in this position, but he did not straighten them, because Nico waited still and patient for Yusuf to return from the warm sea where he was floating. Carefully he let go of Nico’s hair and instead held him by the back of his neck. Nico bent obligingly and Yusuf kept him there, brow to brow, for three breaths. Then he arched up to kiss him, unhurried and thorough. 

Nico groaned into Yusuf’s mouth. He started to move again. Yusuf tried to grin but he was still kissing Nico, and when he felt Nico react to having his lip caught between Yusuf’s teeth, he held on a little more fiercely. For his part, Nico let go of Yusuf’s cock and instead dug his fingers into Yusuf’s beard to seize his jaw, and Yusuf breathed in sharply through his nose. 

Oh, he ached. He _ached_ and Nico was moving deeper now than he did when he worked Yusuf to climax, deep enough that he could almost believe he would do it again. “Nicolò,” he whispered. “Nicolò, _please_.” He put his arms across Nico’s broad shoulders and strong back, and he held on as Nico shook and gasped and finally spent himself. 

Yusuf craned his neck to look at him where he fell against Yusuf’s shoulder. Color was high on his cheeks, his lips were parted and bitten red, and as Yusuf watched, Nico’s eyes slid open and found him watching. 

If Yusuf had harbored any illusions in the private recesses of his heart about being parted from this man by death, let alone the end of the tournament season, the smile Nico gave him now would put them to rout. 

Their first few faltering days together, Yusuf hadn’t even been sure Nico _could_ smile, save for the times Nile broke a lance. He knew now why Nico kept it in reserve. It was radiant, invigorating. Crooked at one corner, which was how Yusuf could be sure it was genuine. Rare and bright as the full moon. A tiny bit wicked. He wanted to wake up to that smile every morning until the day he died. 

Responsibility, the ever persistent caller, rushed back in too soon with a pang behind Yusuf’s ribs. He _had_ come here for a reason and he could hardly go back empty-handed after the better part of a year, without even the rings he wore when he left home. 

Unless. 

“What are you thinking of?” Nico asked. 

“The future,” Yusuf murmured, wary of putting such a fragile idea into words. 

He was thinking of the letter he would write in the morning. It would take all his craft to interest his father in a sport that seemed straightforward enough, but which demanded finesse, and stout horses, and light, strong plate armor that Yusuf could obtain with a comparatively modest up-front investment. 

Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn al-Kaysani was a shrewd businessman. He insisted upon demonstrations before he committed to goods. Convincing him would mean presenting the steel, and the jouster for whom it was made, and an opponent skilled enough to break a lance on her in order to show its strength, and the hands to manage horse and tack and baggage, and--he let himself dare to imagine it--the smith who forged it. 

It would mean competing in the off-season, not only for the sake of Sir Nell’s career on this continent, but to avoid the worst of the heat. 

It would mean all of them traveling to Mahdia, farther south than Nicolò had ever been, to start something new. 

Nico got up on one elbow to peer at him. “What does the future hold, Yusuf?” 

He was still quite red. Yusuf wanted to bite his lip again, to see if his name tasted as sweet as it sounded there. He opened his mouth to answer, but his stomach growled resoundingly. 

Nico collapsed, laughing until Yusuf heard him snort. “There are apples,” he said when he recovered himself, “over in Solomon’s stable.” 

“Solomon,” Yusuf echoed dubiously. 

Nico reached beyond their nest and produced a shirt. He drew out of Yusuf, and Yusuf felt the lack of him--wanted him back already. Nico wiped away the seed Yusuf had spilled on his own belly, then cleaned himself where he’d lain in it. “The palfrey,” he explained. 

Solomon the palfrey. Yusuf squinted at him. “Yes, of course.” 

“Don’t go anywhere,” Nico said. 

Never. In large part because it was so cold. 

But there went Nico, out of the furs and toward the door without donning so much as Yusuf’s coat. Yusuf sat up in the furs. “Get dressed,” he hissed. 

“I just cleaned you with my shirt,” Nico shot back. “Anyway, it’s only across the road.” 

Such an intolerably stubborn man with _such_ a distracting backside. “What if you’re seen?”

Nico tilted his head, and came back toward Yusuf in a conciliatory manner. “All the lovers are doing what we do tonight,” he promised. He stood unabashed with certain parts of him precisely at Yusuf’s eye level. “You wanted a deed to win hearts. I will give you one.” And he bent and kissed him. 

A laugh burst out of Yusuf, past the kiss. Nico let go of him and strode naked out of the stable, flashing his grin once at the door. 

“It’s yours, Nico,” Yusuf called after him. He lay back in the straw and shook his head, beaming at the future and at the present--which was, in yet another of the serendipities of this language, a gift and a blessing. “It’s yours.”

**Author's Note:**

> For the curious, the choral piece Nico gets stuck in his head is here: https://open.spotify.com/track/7zOS7f3BmjpLDWT5vO1l2V?si=b488def46dab4067
> 
> Cheers for reading! I'm @hauntedfalcon on Tumblr if you want to come yell with me about The Old Guard, or A Knight's Tale, or both.


End file.
